SHAGGY-HAIRED EASTLAKE STAR ANYTHING BUT TYPICAL

The way the sandy blond hair falls out of his grandson’s cap, Ron Pietila can only shake his head and smile.

Fifty-one years ago — when Pietila and his National City-Paradise Hills buddies played their way to the Pony League World Series — no one would have dared let their locks run so wild.

Then again, Pietila and his teammates sent word home via telegrams, saved up coins for long-distance phone calls, and read actual newspapers the next morning to find out who won which games.

Yes, times are a lot different now for his grandson, Micah Pietila-Wiggs, who is anything but a cookie-cutter leadoff hitter for Little League World Series-bound Chula Vista Eastlake — what with his carefree love for the game, quick feet and surprisingly powerful stroke.

And that hair. Oh, that shaggy hair falling well past his 12-year-old shoulders, much the way it does with Pietila-Wiggs’ younger brother, Kelii.

“The boys have always had long hair; always have,” Pietila said of his grandsons’ shaggy ’dos. “That’s part of their identity. You know, it’s not for me. I don’t have hair anymore anyway, but I would never have my hair like that.

“But they wear it well.”

Of course, that hair is a bit shaggier these days.

Call it a “playoff beard” of sorts for both Pietila-Wiggs and teammate and buddy Jake Espinoza, who promised to stay away from barber shops until the team reached Williamsport, Pa.

Mission accomplished.

Joining Oceanside American, Rancho Buena Vista and Chula Vista Park View as the fourth San Diego County team to reach the Little League World Series in the last 13 years, Eastlake won 18 of its 19 games over the summer, including a 9-0 clincher over Northern California on Saturday to secure Pietila-Wiggs’ reservation with a stylist sometime after this week’s trip to the LLWS.

And he will make good on that pact to go short — perhaps way short, just for his grandpa.

“(He’s) always telling me to cut it,” Pietila-Wiggs said before a practice this week leading up to Friday’s opener against Great Lakes. “We’re going to do it after Williamsport. It won’t be too hard for me to get it cut, but I’ve never really had my hair short.”

Looking back, it’s hard to see how Pietila-Wiggs’ hair ever stood a chance.

The Chula Vista All-Stars won 16 straight games at one point and outscored their opponents 65-8 in six games in San Bernardino, with Pietila-Wiggs causing all kinds of havoc atop the order. He walked and scored the game’s first run in a 12-0 win over Nevada in the semifinals and doubled and scored three more runs in the championship game — just the kind of showings that the all-star coaching staff has come to expect from its starting second baseman.

“He’s a great leadoff hitter for a lot of reasons,” coach Doug Holman said. “He’s carefree, doesn’t get too rattled, and he isn’t a prototypical leadoff hitter who drops bunts and just hopes to make contact. He can drive the ball in the gap and he can flat out fly.”

Not that any of this is surprising given the family business — sports. Pietila played a few seasons of minor-league ball before beginning a storied coaching career in the South Bay, two of his daughters — including Pietila-Wiggs’ mother, Ronne, an assistant principal at Bonita Vista High — played college soccer, and two granddaughters are turning stellar softball careers under their dad at Eastlake High into scholarships at DePaul University.

Pietila-Wiggs’ dad is even a longtime swimming coach in the South Bay.

It all means that Pietila can leave the coaching to his daughters and sons-in-law and focus on camping and fishing at their favorite spots south of the border.

You know, grandpa stuff.

“We give the kids a chance for more freedom and the shackles of their homes and, so to speak, their mothers,” the 65-year-old Pietila said with a laugh. “We’ve learned to rough it a little bit because there’s nothing (where we camp). We stay away from baseball and softball and sports unless the questions come up.”

If they do this weekend, Pietila will remind his grandson to cherish every second — the pick-up Wiffle Ball games on their off-days, the hours upon hours of bus and plane rides, the wins and even the losses.

It’s all as fleeting as those locks of hair that Pietila-Wiggs and Espinoza have promised to shed after their dream trip to Williamsport.

“This lifetime experience, this team ties you together forever when you get to this level,” Pietila said.